I find myself saying (to myself), “I have to do X.” No doubt, some things must be done. But I need to remind myself at times that no one makes me do certain things except me.
This morning I fixed myself an omelet. I’m sure it will horrify purists, but I really like a fried bologna omelet. As I threw the bologna slice in the frying pan after I had plated the eggs, I noticed a little bit of white stuff around the edges.
“It’s just fat,” I thought. “It’s just because it’s been in the refrigerator. It will melt.”
But when I turned it, I noticed the white stuff was still there.
“I can’t let it go to waste,” I thought, the voice of my parents whispering in my head. “I started cooking it. Now I have to use it.”
I had momentum, you see. I have followed this groove on numerous cooking occasions. Turn the omelet onto a plate, throw the bologna in the frying pan, salt and pepper the omelet, lay a slice of cheese on the omelet, start the tea brewing, turn the bologna, flatten it with the spatula, cut it in half, put it on the cheese slices, fold the egg over, put grated cheese on top, remove the tea bag, enjoy. Routine. Rhythm.
But before I ate it, I looked at the bologna in the refrigerator. While it smelled OK, it just didn’t look right. So I threw the rest of the package away, and I pulled the cooked bologna off the omelet before I ate it.
It’s a small thing, but it reminds me how hard it is to change. Habit drives us. Marketers know the best predictor of the aspirin brand you buy this time is whatever brand you bought last time.
It is one reason, among many, that we need the power of the Holy Spirit to make any real difference. Will power alone famously falls short. Maybe while we’re weathering the pandemic habit becomes even more powerful as we seek something, anything that we can predict, that we can depend on.
The Holy Spirit has little or nothing to do with lunch meat. He has a lot to do with changing you and me. If I have trouble stopping myself from something as simple as “wasting” a slice of lunch meat, how much more do I need help with bigger changes? We change our lives because we have been changed, not in order to change.
In so doing, we connect to that which is Changeless. Ironic, isn’t it?
Peace.